Monday, 11 July 2011

There are times when you don't want to hear Peter Hill-Wood speak but when he tells the Daily Star that Arsenal have no interest in signing Stewart Downing, that isn't one of those times. You want to hear him talk more, but yet he doesn't. He leaves you yearning to hear more about Arsenal's non offering of cash for the Englishman.

And in many of this morning's papers, it's reported that Downing's first choice is a move to Liverpool. Well if that's the height of his ambition, to play for a club who've spent the last two season out of Europe's premier competition, perhaps he's not fit to wear the Arsenal shirt.

The Sun have said Villa won't accept a bid from anyone not matching their £20m valuation of the player, which should also make us weigh up our options more carefully.

The other interesting thing to note of the Downing deal, as pointed out in the Daily Mirror, is that he's our back-up option. First choice is Valencia's Juan Mata, which is positive to hear.

Now if only we could get some of these deals concluded and quickly!

There is plenty of talk of where Nicklas Bendtner and Manuel Almunia are leaving the club for also in this morning's papers.

Bendtner is linked with Borussia Dortmund and Sporting Lisbon. Neither though appear willing to pay the £12m valuation the club have put on his head.

As for Almunia, he's linked with Atletico Madrid and Malaga. No fee has been mentioned, but I'd be surprised if it were much, considering the Spaniard is in the final year of his contract and on good money at Arsenal, not easily matched elsewhere.

It's a good sign that Ivan Gazidis and Arsene Wenger are looking to move on some of our squad players to make room for some fresh blood. We'll need to use the money generated from their sales plus the cash we're saving from their weekly wages wisely.

The club has announced Brazilian attacker Wellington would spend the next season on loan in Spain.

The plane has touched down in Malaysia. Arsene Wenger is due to host a press conference later as well, so it will be interesting to hear the sorts of answered he'll give on all the transfer speculation about.